Debby Does…

32 years ago today, for no reason, other than the power of a boozy drink, I kissed Jim Dalfonso, a guy I didn’t think I liked. We have barely left each other’s sides since that night at Bear’s Place in Bloomington, Indiana. This August, we’ll mark 30 years of marriage, far outlasting all of our parents’ marital endeavors.

Bear’s Place is gone and our attempts at recreating the Skip ‘N Go Naked have been mixed, but we’re still bumbling along blissfully in love and like and laughter. These days, I’ve got more than a few friends going through really difficult divorces and transitions, and it got me thinking about how we’ve made it this far.

Do we know the secret to a happy life together? I don’t think so. In many ways I think it’s dumb luck, but over the last couple of days I have started to consider the toolkit for marriage and what it requires.

Every marriage, every relationship, has major hurdles, if it lasts long enough. Jim’s parents both died early on in our marriage and so grief and that arduous journey reared its ugly head when we were pretty young. It was something to survive and work through, which we did.

I can remember a Memorial Day Weekend incident quite distinctly. We were painting our living room. Jim had been virtually impossible to live with after his mom’s death. I had given him a combination of support, love, and a wide berth, but for some reason, I thought he needed what my mother would have called a swift kick in the pants.

I called him out. I told him he was fat, miserable, and taking us all down with him, even the dog. He looked at me, agreed, joined Weight Watchers, and found his mojo again. I don’t know that a therapist would recommend that approach, but I thought I knew him well enough to know that it would.

I knew him. That was the key. That’s the most important thing in the toolkit.

During our 10 year struggle with infertility, his father’s death, the deaths of all of his grandparents, my mother’s descent into dementia and her passing, hurricanes, lockdowns, and even my cancer, our deep and intense understanding of each other had laid the groundwork for survival. We know each other better than anyone could know us. We have seen each other at our very best and at our most desperate lows. My “Jim Handbook” is full of strategies and tools to lift him up and comfort him. I’m flattered that he has called me his muse on numerous occasions. For me, he takes the crazy notions that fill my brain and turns them into reality—set designs, props, living rooms, kitchens, and everything in between. Like Radar on M.A.S.H., he knows my thought before it comes out of my mouth. Our life’s fabric is utterly entwined.

Still, marriage is a constant negotiation and, quite frankly, it’s unnatural. Living every day and every hour of your life with someone is probably not logical, and yet it’s part of “the dream.” In reality, it’s not about being soul mates and the stuff of fairy tales. Sometimes it’s about diarrhea and someone who blows their nose in the shower; it’s always about balance and constantly shifting levels of need; and occasionally, it’s even about deciding whether it’s worth moving forward together. It’s real and dirty and fucking hard, even if it looks easy on the outside.

There are stretches of time when we are completely in synch, with no bumps along the road, but, like in these past 4 years, there are days and months when it is so awful that it seems as though an exorcism is the only solution. To survive those nasty periods, we rely on a few key things:

Humor. Patience. Humility. More humor.

We also usually remind each other that we don’t want to figure out whose books/opera scores/music is whose and generally that leads us to the realization that taking it all apart would be awfully hard. Plus, we are not figuring out custody of these dogs.

I’m joking. Sort of. Humor, remember.

Jim is very patient. I am incredibly pragmatic. At a basic level, that is a good combination, but there’s more. When I look at him, I see the movie of our 32 years. I rewind to the first time he got my car serviced and didn’t ask me for the money. I think of him spending summer nights at his parents’ house in the basement, building me a bedroom set. I laugh about him shaving my legs and cutting my toenails after back surgery. I well up at the tenderness he showed my mom in her most maddening moments. I respect the history.

Respect.

There it is. The most important thing. I have the deepest abiding respect for Jim and he holds the same for me. It is not a contest. We aren’t keeping score. There is no winner. Neither of us needs the grand gesture to know that we’re loved. We simply wake up every day and try to do our best. When one of us fails, we remember that it wasn’t on purpose; it wasn’t meant to inconvenience the other or upset them. When you assume the best about each other, you cannot be disappointed.

That is not to say that there aren’t awful moments and bits of things we regret, but our humility and love allows us to apologize, heal, and step forward together.

I don’t really know how we got here 32 years later. In the end, I guess we just like each other more than anyone else on the planet and never tire of each other’s company. He’s my favorite person I’ve ever known.

Marriage is not for the faint of heart. Your relationship is the greatest group project you’ll ever work on. It’s rarely about the big, flashy moments that require gifts and cards, but usually about the daily days of emptying the dishwasher, taking out the trash and, at our house, pulling gelatinous snot out of the dog’s nose. If that sounds like drudgery and misery, I assure you that there’s a bit of magic even in the mundane and the snot, if you allow it to find its way in. I hope you can. It’s worth it.

I am so grateful, humbled, and happy to have been loved by the best kisser on earth for the past 32 years.

And you thought this post was going to be about being naked!

Cheers!